Episode 2: The Revenge of X.A.N.A.
Chapter Three "Incoming, Kankrelats!" Yumi shouted. "Twenty life points per hit! A dozen of them!" They turned and saw them heading straight for them. Kankrelats were smallest and weakest of XANA's monsters as they remembered. "Ah, nice." Odd said as he watched the swarm moved to intercept them. "LASER ARROW!" Odd fired once, and struck one monster right in the middle of its symbol. It exploded while the other eleven lined up in formation and fired a salvo. Odd made an energy shield on his arm to take one shot and did a handless cart wheel to avoid two more. Ulrich blocked four with his blades, holding one in a reverse grip and a smirk on his face. William parried two with his massive sword and then lurched forward, rolling under the next two and came up in a crouch. He then swung his sword and sent an energy burst out that destroyed two more of the creatures. Ulrich leaped into the air. "TRIPLICATE!" He split into three versions of himself, each of which took out one monster and then back flipped away. One clone took a blast between the shoulder blades in mid back flip and vanished with a small yelp of pain. Odd fired four more arrows and managed to hit two of his targets as they scattered. William swung his sword down as he came down from a jump and cut one monster down. Ulrich and his clone took out another one individually before the real Ulrich took a blast to the chest. He gasped as he fell, minus twenty life points. His clone dispatched the final monster. "Well...that went better than most of our fights." He remembered how easily they had been dispatched in past fights. "Maybe he's going easy on us as a welcome back gift." Odd joked. "Nah, his version of going easy would be those moth monsters." William said. "You mean Hornets." Ulrich said. "Whatever they are, I never got to memorize the names." William shrugged. "If XANA's as stubborn as last time you'll have the chance." Odd said. "Let's keep going." "We'll have the path cleared in no time." William smirked. Ulrich looked to his clone. "Never had one of you survive a fight." He joked. "Fusion!" The clone rejoined him. Xxx Bridgette was sitting on the couch, crying her heart out. DJ had her in a hug. He seemed to know how to calm anyone down, and right now he had calmed her from raging and screaming to just crying in silence. Duncan had mostly broken anything that showed the sign of the eye and the message. Gwen, Owen, Cody, LeShawna, Izzy, Lindsey, Noah were searching the lounge. "Radio- gah!" Duncan only got static before he tossed the radio out the window. "Even that's out!" "Hey, my sister gave me that!" Izzy yelled, but was ignored. Heather, Ezekiel, and Sierra were just sitting in their wheel chairs while Alejandro lumbered around. The most he could do was nudge furniture and try to tap a button to turn a dial without success. He sighed. "I hate this body." "Why didn't they just give you to a hospital?" Gwen asked. "He wanted me to sign that damn contract first. At first I was gonna refuse him but...well Chef made those special pastries, the ones with cream...and they wouldn't give me a mouth piece unless I signed the contract." "Dude, you signed a contract not to sue them for your lava burns just for some pastries?" Cody asked. "...oh shut up." Alejandro sighed. "Do you think they'll be able to do anything?" Owen asked. "Dunno, whatever happened was a surprise for everyone." LeShawna said. "That eye is some creepy." "And now pretty boy, Trent, Geoff, the wonder twins and Beth are stuck in there." Alejandro said. "That sucks." "Nice to know you actually care." Gwen rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, it's been a couple weeks, I learned my damn lesson!" Alejandro said. "Ah he's right, ease up a bit, the guy got lava burns." Cody said. "Whatever, don't have time to talk about that, we have seven friends stuck in that computer with some wacko out there causing havoc all over the city." Gwen sighed. "Does anyone even know where that eye came from?" Owen asked. "What does it even mean?" "I don't know, but did you see the way it was lookin'? Man it gave me the chills." LeShawna said. "Uh...wait, a second...I think I have a plan." Harold said as he looked at Izzy. Catching on, everybody else did. "Uh...what?" She blinked. "Izzy, you were very smart after you left the show...I don't know how you went back to insane but maybe if we can make you smart again you can figure this out...I mean you did some pretty great things when you were smarter." Harold said. "The geek has a point, everybody think of how to make ginger here smart." Duncan said. "Well how did she get smart last time?" Owen asked. "She hit her head and the doctor said it fixed a clog in her brain." Gwen said. "How did she turn insane again?" Heather asked. "Oh, I just had another blow to the head." Izzy giggled. "...crap, well that idea is out the window." Duncan rolled his eyes. "What now?" "How bad are things out there?" DJ asked. "Planes stuck in the air, traffic is piled up. Nobody can talk to anything, cell phone or radio, it is just chaos out there." Cody said. "And nobody knows how it's happening; people were getting a little uh...shifty on my way in." "So whoever did this has not made demands or something?" Gwen asked. "Nope, not a word." Cody replied. "There's even looting going on. People are going nuts." "You're kidding; it's been...thirty four minutes." Gwen looked at her watch. "If it's bad here I'd hate to see how it would be in America or Canada." "That's the thing Gwen, it's not happening anywhere else. There was a helicopter that flew by a while ago, a military one, a UN chopper, and the guy was announcing that the interference was 'restricted to Paris city limits' and that it would be solved soon. Whoever did this is only doing it right here in Paris." "So the ass hole that did this to Geoff is in this city then!" Bridgette said standing up. "That's the thing, but like I said nobody took credit for it yet. It's just the same message. Nobody knows who it is from or who it is made out to." "Ah great." DJ frowned. "Guess the only thing we can do is wait for it all to just end. Maybe the guy will just stop it all soon." "Well, it hasn't even been an hour; maybe he will stop it after one or two." Duncan shrugged. "Don't count on it, this guy obviously knows what's happening, it's impossible not to. He's obviously milking it, he's not gonna just stop." Noah drawled...only for LeShawna, DJ, Bridgette, and Duncan to send threatening glares at him. "Uh...but you have a point, he may get a laugh and stop in a while." "Damn straight smart ass." LeShawna growled. Xxx "Ah, I just love the smell of...nothing in the morning." Odd said. "But right now...is it me or...do we actually smell something now?" "I just noticed that. Last time I came in here I couldn't smell anything at all, like I lost the sense entirely." William said as the three walk across the last distance towards the tower. "But now...I can even feel heat, I smelled something real nasty when those Kankrelats came at us, I smelled...burning when Ulrich got hit." "I smelled it too, and man it really sucked." Ulrich frowned. "And if I could I'd be sweating like a pig right now." "Ok, so XANA made this Lyoko a little more...realistic, nothing big." Odd shrugged, but then stopped in mid step. "But...that might be a problem." They looked at the tower. The aura was regular white, indicating it was inactive. "Yumi, we're at the tower, but it's not activated." Ulrich said. "What's going on?" "This can't be right; the scanner's showing you right in front of the activated tower!" Yumi said. "Hold on, I'll run a scan of the system." After thirty seconds she reported back. "I found it! The super scan Jeremy designed, the one for detecting active towers, it's corrupted!" "XANA!" William said. "He's had three weeks to work, he must have done it." "So in other words we're walking blind here." Odd said. "We're back in the time before square one, when we had no vehicles but we still had a general direction." "Are Jeremy and Aelita there yet?" Ulrich asked. "I'll call them." Yumi used the built in phone to call Jeremy on his cell phone. He picked up. "Yumi, how are things going?" "Bad. XANA's corrupted the super scan again, I can't find the activated tower and Odd, Ulrich, and William are in there with no vehicles and no directions." "Hold on, I had a program set up to help me fix anything XANA did to mess with the scanners or the interface." Jeremy said. "I never put it into the computer itself, I tested it on my laptop and recorded it in my note book. Go to 'Interface Restore' and put the code in." Yumi flipped through pages and found the code he referred to. She began to type it in. She entered it and watched as the screen shut off. A few words appeared on it. Please wait, system rebooting Yumi sighed. "Can you guys hear me?" "Yeah, we're still here." "I need to wait a bit for the system to reboot itself." Yumi said. "Well, take your time; we're alright for now- ah!" William cried out as a laser hit him in the chest. A Hornet flew over the group, followed by three more. "Hornets!" Odd fired a guided laser arrow. One hornet exploded. William got up and swung his sword as the Hornets passed, but missed. Ulrich leaped up and cut one Hornet out of the air before six more Hornets appeared out of the skies and began to circle the group, firing shots. The group defended, Odd using his barrier and laser arrows while Ulrich and William deflected blasts with their blades. Once in a while the group took down another Hornet, but it was going slow. Odd took two shots from a hornet that got past him, but he was still in the game by the time Yumi said. "The system is up! Alright, the Hornets have thirty life points per hit. And I have the tower this time. It's a mile or two north of you and at a high altitude. Can you see it?" Odd took down another hornet and peered off in the distance, where a mountain stood with the shape of a tower on top. "I see it!" "Let's go!" All three of them took out the last Hornets and took off across the desert towards it. Xxx Jeremy and Aelita stepped into the control room. Aelita had finished crying her eyes out because of what she had seen. Looking around she noticed everything was the same as it was two years ago. None of them came even close to the factory in two years, wanting to forget their adventures. Aelita especially wanted to forget the place her father went into and never came out. "Thank god, finally. Aelita, let's go! The boys need help!" Yumi stood. "Let's go!" Aelita and Yumi stepped into the elevator as Jeremy rushed to the control chair. "Alright, let me help you guys out a bit. I grabbed the vehicle codes on the way here; I knew you might need them. Give me a second and..." He began to type in the codes one at a time. Xxx On Lyoko, four vehicles appeared. One was shaped like a motorcycle with only one wheel. The next looked like a Jet Ski that was hovering above the ground. The third looked like a surf board and was painted with Odd's style and decorations. The final one was new, and looked like a motorcycle, but with two wheels and was styled to match William's suit. "I had a fourth vehicle in design, but after William got possessed I never got around to using it. Thought I might as well try it now." Jeremy said. "Thanks man." William said. "Don't thank me yet." Jeremy replied. Xxx "Transferring Yumi." Yumi stepped into her scanner. "Scanner Yumi." The scanner shut. "Virtualization." Aelita swallowed any hesitation she had and stepped into the scanner. "Transferring Aelita, scanner Aelita, Virtualization." Xxx Yumi and Aelita appeared in mid air and dropped down near the boys. "Nice timing, we've been getting our butts handed to us all across this Desert!" Odd said. "How bad is it?" Yumi asked. "It feels hot and it stinks. That's the weird part that we can even feel or smell." William said. "I'm down to seventy points, Ulrich's down to eighty, and Odd's down to forty." "Well, let's get a move on. We're making good progress, usually by now one or two of us get picked off." Yumi shrugged. They hopped on their vehicles and took off towards the tower. "Uh...guys ,there's something coming at you...I can't tell what it is, but it is very big and the processing it took to make it slowed me down for a minute." Jeremy said. "It's right below you!" Suddenly lasers fired up. The group cried out as they moved to avoid them. Aelita lost her grip on Yumi and fell, but her wings spread and she flew next to them. "Oh man we're going DOWN!" Odd's board was hit and he began to spin out of control before Aelita caught him by the wrist and just barely supported him until Yumi took him onto her vehicle. "Lost the overboard in...twenty five seconds, not bad." Jeremy joked. "Oh man, look at this!" Ulrich said. The group looked down to see the largest monster they had ever met aside from the Kollossus. It looked like a massive bird the size of an air plane, and it was firing a dozen lasers from the top of its body, six on each side. The Lyoko fighters continued to avoid blasts. "Find the mark on it!" Ulrich shouted before he dove down. "Uh...Ulrich!" Yumi pointed at the monster. Ulrich realized what she was pointing out and pulled up in time to avoid the Tarantulas covering the mark on the monster's back. "It's carrying an army!" William said. "Man, just one of those things can take us out, and there are fifty of them!" Odd yelled. "Odd, cover fire, we need to get to that tower!" Yumi shouted. "Got it! YAH!" Odd began firing arrows from both of his arms, peppering the top of the monster with arrows and sometimes catching a Tarantula. By the time he fired twenty arrows he only got three Tarantulas and hadn't hit the mark on the giant monster. "AELITA! DIVE!" Ulrich shouted. "William, you and me run a diversion!" "Got it, one suicide run coming up!" William and Ulrich dove down at the monster while Odd fired a new salvo of arrows. As another Tarantula exploded, Ulrich slammed his Overbike into one Tarantula, which exploded as Ulrich hack flipped off of it. William clipped a Tarantula's head but stayed on his bike, choosing to spin it so he sent two Tarantulas flying off of the monster and destroyed another. William and Ulrich stood back to back, stabbing and swinging at any Tarantulas that got close to them. Tarantulas were deadly because of their guns but they could not aim with Ulrich and William so close to them and in the middle of their formation. Yumi and Odd made periodic passes while Aelita folded her wings and dove towards the tower. As she flew down, some Hornets appeared in her way and opened fire. She dove and twisted out of the way and returned fire with multiple energy spheres, striking down two Hornets. She managed to get past the other hornets. But as she reached the tower, something happened. A black disc appeared in the air above the monster, which was now hovering in position. Several figures dropped down onto the monster, surrounding William and Ulrich as the monsters retreated. These creatures stood on two legs, were clad in black form fitting armour and dragon skull helmets. They carried a variety of weapons from swords to what looked like laser rifles. One spoke in a regular voice. It even had a light British accent to it. "Welcome back to Lyoko." "Did that monster just talk?" William asked Ulrich. "I think so." Ulrich's eyes narrowed. "I speak through this new creation to welcome you all back. Especially my dear sister Aelita. It has been so long, I felt that it would be a good idea to put together a special reunion." The Dragon Knight raised the laser pistol in its hand and fired one shot. It knocked William off his feet before he could react, but the boy recovered and got up as the fight began. Odd and Yumi jumped down and joined in. Yumi delivered a kick to one Dragon Knight's visor as she came down. Odd fired six arrows into another knight in quick succession. "These new monsters have...200 life points! Twenty five life points per hit!" Jeremy shouted. Ulrich engaged the lead monster, which drew two short daggers and parried his blows. William managed to cut down one monster and then spun, cutting through two more of the Knights before more dropped down. Yumi threw her fans, cutting down another monster before flying back into her hands. She then sent a brief telekinetic burst that sent another flying up into the air and over the side of the monster. Ulrich ended up cutting down two Dragon Knights, but the lead one eluded him. Each time they killed one, it took several hits, four or five instead of one like with most monsters. "How do you like my new creations, Ulrich?" XANA taunted through the lead monster. "Are they giving you a good work out?" "We kicked your ass before and we'll do it again!" Suddenly Odd tried to fire at XANA, who parried the two arrows aside and back flipped, regrouping with six knights. "Ah of course, you think our previous encounter was a victory...but that was not even I that you destroyed. I admit my father's plan would have worked...if he hadn't made me so damn good at what I do." XANA said. "I planned every step of what happened leading up to the last confrontation. The XANA that was destroyed was a copy. A powerful one that could have evolved as I do, but a copy none the less. As our battles continued I realized that as long as my creator was alive I would always be watching over my back for him, which is why I continued to try to toss Aelita into the Digital Sea, so he would come into the open to rescue her and allow me to dispatch him. But you kept on interfering, so I had to make an alternate plan. Remember your trip to the Antarctica Base? It was there you discovered the key programs needed to release William from me and where you discovered the hundreds of computers I controlled when I made my strongest creation." His daggers formed into a katana. "At that point, Jeremy realized he needed to find a faster way to destroy all of my replicas to destroy me. And what did he come up with? A virus of his own to destroy me, a multi agent system that would spread all over the network and specifically wipe out anything that had to do with me. So I left the network...I put myself into a computer and disguised myself as another program and waited as my copy did battle with you making you all believe I was making my last stand. I disconnected the device of course; I counted on your persistence being my copy's downfall. All I needed to do was let you have William's freedom restored and then you would use the program to destroy me...I applaud you all, but now I shall not allow myself to be a victim of such plans this time around." "You tricked us!" William shouted. "To win at chess, sometimes you have to give up a pawn." Ulrich growled. "Well damn, he really did have us." "And he played us like puppets the whole way." Yumi added. "And I thank you all for playing along. Not only did I fake my death, but my father is now dead, his precious sacrifice in vain! Now, let me show you what I can do without the restrictions of my creator, Waldo Schaeffer!" He leaped forward, his sword glowing red with energy that gathered at the hilt and travelled to the tip of the blade. All four fighters tensed, and XANA's puppet swung the sword down. Before it struck the surface of the monster the energy spread out in four streams that collided with each Lyoko fighter. They screamed as they were shot off of the giant avian monster. Aelita watched with growing horror as they began to fall towards the digital sea below. She dove down, attempting to save at least one of them. But before she could XANA and three of his Dragon Knights leaped down after the warriors, sprouting bat like wings. They each caught one warrior, who remained limp in their grasp. "Now let's put you somewhere nice and quiet." XANA hissed before a portal opened beneath the Dragon Knights, who dumped the Lyoko fighters in. "NO!" Aelita shouted, tossing an energy sphere at XANA, who parried it with his katana. "Now sister...time to run, time to scream...time to die." XANA took off his helmet. Instead of the generic black, featureless head most Dragon Knights had, he looked like a male version of Aelita; his hair was black with red streaks all through it. All though the Dragon Knights had no faces under their helmets XANA modified this monster so that it would have a human face designed by XANA himself to interact and taunt his enemies. His red eyes glowed like stars at night as he smirked. "Capture her." Aelita fled towards the tower, knowing she could not hope to win. As the Dragon Knights pursued her, Jeremy urged Aelita on. "Keep going Aelita!" "Ah yes, the prodigy, the one who signed my father's death warrant...I can take care of you just as easily." XANA said. "As you will see, I've improved more than my digital monsters Jeremy." Xxx Jeremy looked up as a cloud of black mist began to slowly come out of the cables above the computer. "Nice try, nobody around to possess." On the screen, XANA chuckled. "Wrong Jeremy. You haven't been to Lyoko for over two years and even then you only went there for a limited amount of time. Over a certain amount of time the resistance that is built up against me fades. Like I just said...I've improved." The Spectre entered Jeremy as he realized what XANA meant. The boy cried out and fell from the seat. "Jeremy! I'm in the tower!" Xxx Aelita was putting in the code as the Dragon Knights tried without success to enter the tower. She approached the command interface and put in her name. In capital letters, a message was displayed. CODE She typed in the same one she used for so long, the one that ended XANA's attacks. LYOKO Xxx The Dragon Knights paused as the tower turned white again. They suddenly collapsed. XANA grimaced, the strain of his power being pushed back making it painful for him now that he could feel. "Well...such a shame, but I haven't lost either my dear sister. You're alone now, at my mercy and stuck here." Xxx In the real world, moments before the tower was deactivated, Jeremy was struggling with the Spectre as it tried to control him. He pulled himself up onto the chair and began to type in the code to devirtualize Aelita. As she put in the code, Jeremy put in the final key. In the tower, Aelita sighed in relief before she was pulled out of digital space and reappeared in the scanner room. Xxx Jeremy sighed and closed his eyes, waiting for the Spectre to leave him, but nothing happened. It still tried to control him. He grunted. "But-why-we shut down the tower!" "And if you recall Jeremy, a Spectre wasn't what this tower activated. I used it to send my message out to France. This one was activated from a special place, close to my heart." XANA joked. "Now I get to see Aelita fight with no friends to fight with her and no father to die for her. Time to go Jeremy; let's not let my sister see you this way. I won't hurt her yet...I'd like to watch her suffer first." "No...Aelita..." Jeremy's eyes closed...and opened with the XANA symbol in place of his irises. "Go now my servant." XANA whispered in his mind. Jeremy left the computer room and the factory altogether. Xxx After taking a moment to recover, Aelita took the elevator back to the control room. "Jeremy! What are we going to-" Aelita paused as she saw the empty chair. "Jeremy?" "Sister..." XANA hissed over the intercom. "You're alone now. No body guards, no Jeremy, it's just you and me now." "No..." Aelita collapsed to her knees. "I'll leave you be for now, I need to recover from that head ache you gave me...fare well sister." XANA's voice faded. Aelita stared at the map of Lyoko for what felt like eternity, unable to accept what just happened. Then it all hit her: her friends were gone, Jeremy was gone, and she had to fight XANA all on her own now. Category:Code: Total Drama Reality